Friday, March 20, 2009

Down the chain of the Exumas

There's not much at Norman's Cay... but click on the link and read about it's violent past as the drug smuggling headquarters of Carlos Lehder.Now there is just the landing strip and McDuff's restaurant; and a beautiful and peaceful island of course.

We wondered how many billions of dollars of contraband passed through this little landing strip.

A quote from Wikipedia about Norman's

With the Bahamian authorities looking the other way and the local inhabitants scared off, the island became a haven of debauchery for Lehder and his associates. Carlos Toro remembers, "Norman's Cay was a playground. I have a vivid picture of being picked up in a Land Rover with the top down and naked women driving to come and welcome me from my airplane...

Then we dinked around to the other side of the island. This would have been a much better place to have dropped anchor but we were already committed to our spot on the west side.

Remains of an old drug smuggling plane in the shallows. We wondered if their ditch was as successful as the recent one in New York.

Night before last was a very bumpy one anchored out from Norman's Cay. A front of some kind blew past and kicked up 4' swells. But the anchor held and at around 4:00 AM the wind stopped and the sunrise was as beautiful as the sunset the previous day.

We are now at Warderick Wells on a mooring buoy around Emerald Rock. It's beautiful here and the weather is supposed to be good for a couple of days.More on Exumas Land and Sea Park later.